•The Impossible —Naomi Watts, as a perhaps mortally injured mom, hanging on to protect and teach one or two more life lessons to her son in the chaotic days after the horrific 2004 tsunami, gives the year’s most touching performance in a film that recreates that disaster and how one vacationing family, and poor local people who have lost everything, survive. It restores your faith in humanity, but if you’re too cool for tears go play a video game.

•Jeff, Who Lives at Home — Funny, dark, and wise, here’s a film about a slacker (Jason Segel) who finds meaning and purpose to his years-long obsession with M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs over the course of one fateful, hilarious day. Ed Helms is the brother who no longer lives at home, Susan Sarandon is the mom realizing what a disappointment both her maladjusted sons are. Jason Segel, if this is your future run run run from How I Met Your Mother.

• Zero Dark Thirty — Riveting, painful to watch at times, controversial in its treatment of torture, this is heroic in its celebration of the dogged intelligence work that, in the end, brought justice down on Osama bin Laden. There are touching moments, mostly in a montage of 9-11 phone messages in the opening credits. Performances are secondary in this, another painstakingly detailed military movie from the Hurt Locker team of Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow. A movie you want to or need to see twice? No.

• Beasts of the Southern Wild — A minor miracle, here’s the best argument for “regional” filmmaking ever — a vivid, post-Katrina bayou setting where unforgettable, impoverished characters battling the rising tide of climate change and history. Benh Zeitlin’s film is a great new Southern Gothic novella, magical realism made for the screen and starring that pint-sized force of nature, Quvenzhane Wallis.

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower — Not high school as it really was, but high school as it should have been. Sympathetic friends, including a wonderful Emma Watson, help a morose freshman cope with a new school and the dark secret in his past, by talking about the dark secrets in their pasts. Do kids still dress up and go see Rocky Horror? Maybe not, but they should.

• Les Miserables — You can know the book and know the play and still be surprised and moved by this epic tale of misery, poverty, unjust “justice,” compassion and redemption. Anne Hathaway, as the tragic prostitute Fantine, has been moving us to tears for a year, thanks to the trailers. In the film, she will all over again, as will Samantha Barks, Hugh Jackman and little Daniel Huddlestone. A lovely film that have you whispering thanks that they didn’t screw it up.

• The Dark Knight Rises — The Avengers was more fun, but The Dark Knight has gravitas, weight, timely themes and genuine lump-in-your-throat moments. The darkness is what the fanboys insist on, the hope comes courtesy of Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine, who give heart and political relevance to a franchise taking its final bow.

• Smashed — It doesn’t reinvent the alcoholism drama, it just gives it youth and heartbreak. Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives the performance of her career as a young teacher who struggles to grow up, get sober and start over. Standing in her way? Her adoring husband (Aaron Paul), the love of her life, but her co-dependent enabler. This is what the downward spiral is like, and this is how rough recovery can be.

• Skyfall — Yes, it was fun, thrilling and entertaining, but so was Argo. Yes, it’s a throwback, a worthy entry in the series that stands with the best Bond films. But you can count on one finger the preceding James Bond movies that gave us a hint of pathos — On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This one had high stakes, loss and consequences.

• Lincoln —I still don’t think this is one of Steven Spielberg’s very best. But the tone he set here sticks with you long after Daniel Day-Lewis has cracked his last Lincoln joke. It’s an elegy, a funeral poem of images, of a kind man coping with the darkest hours in the nation’s history with humor, forgiveness, and steely resolve.

Other bests

Best animated film—“Frankenweenie.” This is why we love stop-motion animation, wiener dogs and Tim Burton.

Best foreign film—“Amour,” but despite the end-of-life subject matter, not as moving as you might think.

Best documentary—“The Imposter,” because even con artists can have a conscience. Eventually.